Characterizing exoplanets Archives

July 18, 2024July 18, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Officially, Only the Sun Can Have Planets. Is it Time to Fix the Definition of “Planet”?

Color-enhanced image of Pluto obtained from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015. (Credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL) / Southwest Research Institute (SwRI))

What is the true definition of a planet, and could there be a more refined definition in the future? This is what a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers from the United States and Canada investigated the potential for a new definition of a “planet”. This study holds the potential to challenge the longstanding definition outlined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which established IAU Resolution B5 in 2006, resulting in demoting Pluto from a “planet” to a “dwarf planet”.

January 29, 2024January 29, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Water Vapor Found in the Atmosphere of a Small Exoplanet

Artist's impression of GJ 9827 d, which is the smallest exoplanet ever found to potentially possess water in its atmosphere. (Credit: NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak and Ralf Crawford (STScI))

A recent study published in The Astrophysucal Journal Letters discusses the detection of water within the atmosphere of GJ 9827 d, which is a Neptune-like exoplanet located approximately 97 light-years from Earth, using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and is the smallest exoplanet to date where water has been detected in its atmosphere. This study was conducted by an international team of researchers and holds the potential to identify exoplanets throughout the Milky Way Galaxy which possess water within their atmospheres, along with highlighting the most accurate methods to identify the water, as well.

January 13, 2024January 14, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Big Planets Don’t Necessarily Mean Big Moons

Artist's illustration of a large exomoon orbiting a large exoplanet. (Credit: NASA/ESA/L. Hustak)

Does the size of an exomoon help determine if life could form on an exoplanet it’s orbiting? This is something a February 2022 study published in Nature Communications hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the potential for large exomoons to form around large exoplanets (Earth-sized and larger) like how our Moon was formed around the Earth. Despite this study being published almost two years ago, its findings still hold strong regarding the search for exomoons, as astronomers have yet to confirm the existence of any exomoons anywhere in the cosmos. But why is it so important to better understand the potential for large exomoons orbiting large exoplanets?

December 31, 2023December 31, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

TRAPPIST-1c Isn’t the Exo-Venus We Were Hoping For. But Don’t Blame the Star

A recent study accepted to The Astrophysical Journal uses computer models to investigate why the exoplanet, TRAPPIST-1c, could not possess a thick carbon dioxide (CO2) atmosphere despite it receiving the same amount of solar radiation from its parent star as the planet Venus receives from our Sun, with the latter having a very thick carbon dioxide atmosphere. This study comes after a June 2023 study published in Nature used data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to ascertain that TRAPPIST-1c does not possess a carbon dioxide atmosphere. Both studies come as the TRAPPIST-1 system, which is located approximately 41 light-years from Earth and orbits its star in just 2.4 days, has received a lot of attention from the scientific community in the last few years due to the number of confirmed exoplanets within the system and their potential for astrobiology purposes.

November 3, 2023November 3, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

Exo-Jupiters’ Commonality and Exclusivity Highlighted in Two New Studies

Image of Jupiter taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Two recent studies explore how Exo-Jupiters might be more common than previously thought along with entire systems being exclusively comprised of them. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill)

A pair of recent studies conduct in-depth analyses of Jupiter-sized exoplanets, also known as Exo-Jupiters, and were published in Nature Communications and The Astronomical Journal, respectively. The study published in Nature Communications was conducted by an international team of researchers and examines how Exo-Jupiters could be more common than previously thought, while the study published in The Astronomical Journal was conducted by one researcher and examines exoplanetary system, HD 141399, and how it is comprised entirely of Exo-Jupiters with no additional planets.

October 18, 2023October 18, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

An Exoplanet so Hot it has Clouds Made of Quartz

Artist illustration showing what WASP-17 b could look like based on data obtained from a myriad of ground- and space-based telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble, Webb, and the retired Spitzer space telescopes. This most recent study used MIRI (Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument) to identify nanocrystals of quartz within the clouds WASP-17 b. (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and R. Crawford (STScI))

A recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters used data obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to identify the presence of quartz nanocrystals in the upper atmosphere of WASP-17 b, an exoplanet whose mass and radius are approximately 0.78 and 1.87 that of Jupiter, respectively, and is located approximately 1,324 light-years from Earth. WASP-17 b is classified as a “puffy” hot Jupiter due to its 3.7-day orbital period, meaning the extreme temperatures could cause unique chemical processes to occur within its atmosphere, but the astronomers were still surprised by the findings.

February 12, 2020February 12, 2020 by Evan Gough

Here are the First Pictures from CHEOPS

First image of the star chosen as target for CHEOPS after cover opening. The star, at the centre of the image, is located at a distance of 150 light-years from us, in the constellation of Cancer. Image Credit:ESA/Airbus/CHEOPS Mission Consortium

The CHEOPS spacecraft is taking the first tentative steps in its mission. Back on January 29th, the spacecraft opened the cover on its lens. Now, we have the first images from CHEOPS.